Search form

Anti-racism

In June 1987 four black Labour MPs were elected. Gary McFarlane recalls this cause for celebration in an otherwise grim night, and looks at the political trajectories of these pioneering politicians.

There are plenty of theories about how Labour managed to lose four general elections in a row to the Tories from 1979 onwards, despite mass unemployment stalking the land and the relentless attacks on working class living standards. Vast swathes of the country became factory-free zones. The working class is disappearing, we were told by the misnamed journal of the Communist Party, Marxism Today. “De-industrialisation”, we were told, meant the only hope for progressives was to band together around the lowest common denominator.

Darcus Howe, who died last month, was a central figure in the radical black movement in Britain. He developed his politics from his roots in Trinidad through the fight against the National Front and the Mangrove Nine campaign against police harassment. Christian Høgsbjerg tells the story of his life.

The black Trinidadian political radical Darcus Howe was one of the leading ideological agitators of the British Black Power Movement, and a lifelong rebel and “troublemaker” who made a critical contribution to the making and shaping of modern multicultural “post-colonial” Britain.

Three recent arguments over cultural representations of anti-racist struggle expose a willingness to distort or ignore real historical events in order to fit with current ideas, writes Ken Olende.

The Metropolitan Police brutally attack a peaceful anti-racist demonstration in a key early scene from the new TV drama Guerrilla. It is 1971 and the police violence recalls two real incidents — the demonstration against police harassment that led to the arrest of the Mangrove Nine, and the later death of anti-racist activist Blair Peach.

With negotiations over Britain’s future relationship with the EU now under way, Theresa May still hasn’t spoken out to unilaterally guarantee the rights of EU nationals currently living in Britain. Instead the Tory government has stated that it wants to wait until it gets an offer from EU member states securing the rights of British nationals abroad. People’s lives, their relationships, homes and future plans, are all being used by politicians as bargaining chips.

The rise of Donald Trump is symbolic of a growing confidence on the populist right. With elections approaching in Europe and Theresa May heading into the Brexit negotiations with the aim of restricting migration, Michael Bradley lays out a plan for the kind of anti-racist movement we need.

The election of Donald Trump has sent shockwaves across the world. For many, Trump’s victory is part of a seamless growth in support for the populist right. His demagogic rants about “building a wall” and protecting US workers by “putting America first” have been reflected by similar figures in country after country.

To lead is to foresee, someone once said. This applies to phenomena such as the Football Lads Alliance (FLA), covered in Socialist Review last month. Too many either ignore the FLA or have a complacent attitude to what is a serious matter.

There have been protests by anti-racists against the election result in Germany last month. Far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) received 12.6 percent of the vote.

This gave them 94 MPs in the German pariliament. Although one, a former leader, immediately left the party and became an independent.

The MPs include Beatrix Von Storch who found infamy when she supported shooting refugees who approached the border. When defending her comments she said, “The use of firearms against children is not permitted,” but “women are a different matter.”

Claims about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party have corrupted the need to not only confront the real anti-Semitism initiated by Donald Trump’s administration but, as John Rose argues, the need to campaign for national dialogue between Palestinians and Israeli Jews.

‘Everything is allowed to him [the member of the gang], he is capable of anything, he is the master of property and honour…if he wants to, he can throw an old woman out of a third floor window together with a grand piano, he can smash a chair against a baby’s head, rape a little girl while the entire crowd looks on… He exterminates whole families, he pours petrol over a house, transforms it into a mass of flames… There exists no tortures, figments of a feverish brain maddened by alcohol and fury, at which he need ever stop… The victims…kiss the soldiers’ boots…[only to hear] drunken laughte

The election of a bigoted, right wing billionaire to the position of President of the US was a shock. Lewis Nielsen interrogates the various explanations being put forward for Trump's win.

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election in November ranks as one of the biggest political earthquakes of recent times. People around the world are predictably shocked and disgusted that a racist billionaire bigot now holds the highest elected office. Trump’s words and actions in the two weeks since his election have sent deliberately mixed messages — but mostly they have been pretty horrifying. He has welcomed White Supremacists, anti-abortionists and rabid warmongers into his circle (not to mention family members).